In real life, I myself am kind of a rambling guy. I like to travel.

In real life, I myself am kind of a rambling guy. I like to travel.

I've always approached screenplays and so forth with, "How would it really happen?" Not "What's the movie version?" but "What's the real-life version?" Then I just follow my nose.

Independent means one thing to me: It means that regardless of the source of financing, the director's voice is extremely present. It's such a pretentious term, but it's auteurist cinema. Director-driven, personal, auteurist... Whatever word you want. It's where you feel the director, not a machine, at work. It doesn't matter where the money comes from. It matters how much freedom the director has to work with his or her team. That's how I personally define independent movies.

I think a badly crafted, great idea for a new film with a ton of spelling mistakes is just 100 times better than a well-crafted stale script.

I make comedies and I always try... I don't try but I allow to have at least 5% of the jokes or have some jokes that I know will be understood by only about 5% of the audience. It's that guy in the corner who gets it and laughs. But he has to have his jokes too. That's part of my audience. Part of my audience is the people who will only get certain things.

I spend a long time casting, but once I've cast a film there's a reason why I selected those people. So I'm hands-on in selecting the cast, hands-off to see what they do with their characters, and hands-on again to offer suggestions.